It’s Tuesday and that means it’s the first installment of WhatchootalkingboutTuesday! Look I have an intro:

Come on, have a seat over here (do I sound like Chris Hansen?) Let me tell you a little about my life. I work at home. I have a routine. It keeps me sane.

Everyday, the Damn Dog (which is her official blog name) wakes me up an hour before my alarm to tell me she has to go pee and really wants to rip limbs off my bushes to bring them in the house to chew on. As I fall back asleep on the couch, I check emails on my phone, make sure I don’t have any early meetings, snore for about 40 minutes, then get up, curse at the dog (and her fucking mess), give her food and make coffee. For about 2-3 hours, I have exquisite silence: the dog goes back to sleep, the wife does her Disney stuff upstairs, I power through stuff with the Day Job Dragon and the world spins in harmony.

But for the past 72 days, my delightful mornings have been interrupted by little people’s loud ass iPhone rings and alerts, shoes and dirty cereal bowls and candy wrappers strewn about, a litany of somebody else’s kids eating my goddamn Swiss Cake Rolls, and my fucking creamer coming up empty when I make my coffee—for the last 72 days school has been out. My damn kids have been home.

It’s been a nightmare.

But tomorrow, tomorrow, that bullshit ends tomorrow! Why? Because it’s DMFGBTS—Deez Muthafuckas Go Back To School! Can you tell I’m happy? Dude, I am ecstatic. Actually, this is me right now:

I’ve been in my house doing the Dougie for the last 3 days.

I gotta admit though, I’m only so optimistic this year. If you’ve read my little blog, you know The Boy has an adversarial relationship with his academics. In fact, HE is the reason there is DMFRH at all. All summer, he’s been talking about turning over a new leaf and taking his studies much more seriously. Apparently, that’s tomorrow’s shit. Today, he had a 4 hour orientation to high school. High School. The precursor to adulthood. It ain’t no surprise–we’ve been talking about it for the last 70-some days: “Dude, you gotta be up and ready for your orientation at 8.” Come 7am, was the cat up? No? How about 7:15? Nah. 7:30? That’s better–once his mama kicked in the door like she got a warrant and a flak jacket.  “Why didn’t you set an alarm?” His response: “You didn’t tell me to.” For real? Like for real for real? How are you late on your first day?

But it all hasn’t been shits and giggle the last few days. I’ve already told you that I have a Superman complex and, while I like to believe I’m invulnerable, I can actually get hurt. And this week, the Boy got me. He cut me deep.

Like mothers and daughters, sons and fathers go through a tête-à-tête of sorts—in Discovery Channel fashion, the young lion tries to assert his dominance on the older alpha lion (are there alpha lions?) and routinely gets smacked down. This is our relationship these days. I know he will challenge. He knows he will lose. It works. For the most part. But on a routine mission to Disneyland (yes, again, but this time without me), the Boy had some commentary about me. He called me a “replacement” for his real father. A replacement. I was feeling some kind of way about it too. I actually got my feelings hurt.

I’d love to know what you think on this (and whether my response was justified) and, in order to do that I have to bring up another point. You may not know this but I have another blog, Falling From Grace, where I discuss my novels, their themes and other weighty topics. In my post there Sunday, I brought up this little tidbit in light of some grander themes in my Heaven Falls novels—mainly forgiveness. You know what that means, right? Crossover!

What you think matters to me, so follow the link, take a look around and gimme your thoughts! Feel free – hint hint – to also check out the Heaven Falls Facebook page and drop me a note!

Last week, I dropped a lovely Breaking Bad/VMA YouTube mix. I hope it cracked you up as much as it did me. And, as I was finishing up my new-and-improved Khan post, I stumbled across this lovely vid of Kirk watching Miley. This shit was funny!

We’re back on Friday with ZOD!